Hot Take: "Equal Fights" Predicted Online Faketivism
In some ways "Equal Fights" hasn't aged well in its effort to teach about feminism, that the execution wasn't handled as well as it could have been & that it wound up painting the feminists as straw men stereotypes. Rumor has it that even Lauren Faust, who did storyboards on the episode, isn't a fan of it in hindsight.
However this episode feels a lot more relevant to me now in our current age of online purity culture.
We live in an age of social media where young people, who had little to no power before, now have a tool at their fingertips to signal boost for those who need help the most. Teenagers can be everyday heroes in their own right. Frankly I respect you kids for being motivated in your sense of kindness & nobility.
However the problem is that unfortunately what good that can actually be done gets drowned out by a lot of harassment & bullying in the name of social justice. Especially if these young people's sources are very dubious & self-serving.
That's basically what Femme Fatale is as a character. She's a grifter who uses a progressive movement, feminism in this case, as her means for her own gain. Namely, robbing banks.
It's understandable that every super villain has a gimmick. Two-Face has the Number 2 & duality, FF could've just been a devious collector of currency with women imprinted on them. (I myself wish they would discontinue the bulky, useless penny & bring back the Sacagawea dollar.) But beyond that, she uses it as an excuse to get out of getting arrested, to claim that what she's doing is good for society at large, & above all to manipulate & influence the young & impressionable Powerpuff Girls.
The girls, being literal children, take her words to heart & implement them in ways that do more harm than good. From bullying boys in the schoolyard to letting Femme Fatale get away with her crimes.
Reminds me an awful lot of kids & young people on Tumblr & Twitter who get riled up by the words of self-proclaimed progressives who turn out to be TERFs, grifters, or members of the Leopards Eating My Face Party. Namely, the people who use progressivism & online activism to their own end.
And it's not just the Youtubers with the large subscriber base. It's also the individuals who reblog, retweet & bully even on a small scale to make themselves look good or feel like they're making a difference. Not to mention the burner & bot accounts being used to fan the flames of discord within progressive circles.
But what I find the most telling is that FF claims to be a feminist, she collects Susan B. Anthony coins, but she doesn't even know who Susan B. even was & why she was so important to American history.
Reminds me an awful lot of certain gay or trans Youtubers who would try to have you believe that "queer" is a slur, when in reality we not only reclaimed it as an umbrella term to include bisexual, trans, intersex, asexual, etc. people, but is an important part of our very history.
The slogan chanted demanding our basic human rights:
"We're here, we're queer
Get used to it."
It makes me sick that there are multiple generations of people who don't understand our own history. That there are people within our community who would promote & capitalize on that ignorance.
That's who Femme Fatale is. Willingly ignorant herself, selfish, manipulative, & would promote such lack of values to the next generation for her own gain.
And that's why she deserves to serve time in prison, while online faketivist grifters deserve to lose followers, go broke, & disappear into obscurity so they can't do any more damage.
"I'm Not Going To Sit Here And Get Hit By A Girl, You Must Be Out Of Your Mind If You Think I'm Not Getting Up And Mopping Her"-Forgot where it was from but its was by sum ghetto gay boy
While I mentioned it the other day when I updated my Dolls in Media List, but now I actually have the clip from Powerpuff Girls where Blossom melts her Ken doll's head (Feat. a really pretty Barbie stand in doll). It was for a twitter post but I figured I'd post it here anyways.
It’s been a while since I did one of these, and Shockingly the first time I’ve talked about The Powerpuff Girls. I think for a situation like this, we should all ease back into the series with a fun, lighthearted topic that I think we all can enjoy.
So let’s talk about feminism!
(I’m sure this is most of you reading this right now.)
“Equal Fights” is a rather infamous episode of the show, in which the girls try and accost a female robber named Femme Fatale who manages to turn the girls into man-hating straw feminists, much like she herself is. That is, of course, until positive female role models teach the girls what it really means to stand up for women and that people like Femme Fatale are merely paying the idea lip service so they can deflect blame and criticism from themselves. Pretty lighthearted and fun for a kid’s show, eh?
This is one of the most divisive episodes of the entire series these days, and honestly, I do kind of see why. Like, this is a superhero action cartoon aimed at kids, and it is dealing with a very serious topic, and since this show isn’t known for its deep moralizing or anything it’s obviously not going to be able to give this topic the 100% due that it deserves. And in a lot of ways it doesn’t; this is a pretty watered down look at a very big topic, even more constrained by the episode’s 11 minute runtime. It takes a brilliant mind to cram such serious topics into such a short timespan.
(Not all shows can be the same level of godly quality as Captain Planet)
But on the other hand, I do think there is value in introducing stuff like this to younger audiences, especially younger girls. I think stuff like this can give you a lot to think about, a lot to read up on, a lot of questions to ask, even if it isn’t necessarily perfect at portraying the issues at hand. And honestly, even if it is pretty simplified, the message of this episode most definitely has its heart in the right place. You should be willing to call out people who are trying to use feminism as a free pass to be an asshole, you should correct girls who think being empowered means they are superior, you should try and educate calmly and try and steer younger people who are being lead astray by false icons to the righteous path. Like, this isn’t a bad message to send to young people, these are all very good things.
I think a lot of the problem honestly lands squarely on how Femme Fatale is written. She’s just not a particularly interesting villain at all. The term “strawman” is used so utterly poorly in internet arguments these days it has basically just become a codeword for “thing you said I don’t like,” but if ever there was a strawman character, it is Femme Fatale. And again, it’s not like what she represents is good or right, but she’s seriously hamfisted and… uhhh… cartoonish to the point where it’s almost laughable that she could ever lead anyone astray. All that being said, I can’ say she serves her purpose poorly, she just could have used some better or more nuanced writing to her, as most of her positions are absurdly transparent, particularly the one in regards to superheroines where there are so many obvious answers that it’s painful.
(THIS position of hers is perfect, though)
And yeah, I get it, 11 minutes blah blah blah. But here’s the thing with PPG: the villains are all quirky, interesting, and fun, even if they have simple and cartoonish personalities. A lot of these villains can fit into a lot of different stories, and they don’t just have one role that theye always play. Mojo can pull of petty crimes and scientific schemes and it makes sense, Him can kick the dog and poke the poodle and you can buy it, Princess can be a snotty brat in one episode and literally trying to hijack Christmas in another and you can buy it because while these are simple characters they have the sort of personalities you can bend to fit a situation.
Femme Fatale does not have this. She is literally a straw figure meant to be struck down by FACTS and LOGIC and REASON. And while she serves that purpose well, she does not feel like a PPG antagonist at all. It’s no wonder she was never used as an antagonist again, because really, what the fuck other stories could she be in? Any story in which she was a major antagonist would feature her being an obnoxious man-hating straw feminist espousing the same ideology that was stripped apart and shown as garbage in her first outing. She just does not have the foundation for a good or interesting character, which is a real shame too because her costume, design, and voice acting (courtesy of Grey Griffin or Grey DeLisle as you may know her) are all perfectly fine. It’s just that all of that ends up being wasted on a character who only exists to be proven wrong.
(Her Psycho Analysis score is 2/10)
I guess this is really just a case where I can see where anyone’s opinion on this episode is coming from. On the one hand, it does have good messages and morals, and it does show that you shouldn’t allow people to use feminism as a smokescreen to hide their actions, as well as giving a sort of brief history lesson about Susan B. Anthony.
But on the other hand, it centers on a bland antagonist who exists solely to be the antithesis of the message and is extremely unsubtle and hamfisted in its moral, and given the restrictions of the show it doesn’t really give the topic the full examination it deserves. The episode is ultimately a mixed bag, one that I think has value but is most certainly flawed.
It’s kind of sad, though, that Lauren Faust views this episode as such a huge failure on her part. Like, yes, maybe she did try and tackle a topic that was far too big for a kid’s cartoon show about superpowered preteens who beat the shit out of a monkey with a giant brain who talks like a dictionary describing Lex Luthor stealing forty cakes, but this is not writing of hers that is devoid of quality or merit.
No, that’s an entirely different episode of a show she wrote.
